The Log Of The Crimson Lien

BOOK 1

Too Good To Be True

By

Wesley Clifford

CHAPTER 2

The Cargo

Prialla Thrombia strode across the tarmac before a large automated cart holding the 103 cargo containers that were - ostensibly - going into the ship's cargo bay. It was getting late, and the westering Sun was playing across her facial features (and her other features) nicely. Quincy appreciated the curve and sway of her hips that were barely contained by her ever-so-short skirt.

Chuck asked, "That her?"

Quincy nodded in appreciation. "Yup."

"Hello again, mister Merriweather," she said in her lovely voice. "I have the cargo, and a contract. I hope you don't mind I had one created."

"Not at all," said Quincy, his voice oozing charm.

Chuck frowned at the earmarks that hovered over the digital pages. "A lot of additions to that contract..."

Prialla got serious, which only made her more desirable in Quincy's eyes. "We have a few requirements. I hope none of them are too restrictive."

"I'm sure they're not," said Quincy, hoping that was true.

"We'll see," said Chuck. "What all are we taking?"

"Myself, my partner Sultia, and these cargo containers. 7 full crates and 96 halves"

Quincy spoke before his friend could finish the mental mathematics. "I figured it out. They'll fit."

Prialla nodded. "Good. They're pre-packed and sealed, and very sensitive. Tender handling is part of the contract."

Chuck's wariness showed. "Sealed? What's in them?"

Prialla smiled. "Don't worry, they're not illegal or something. If I was going to smuggle I wouldn't be hiring a random ship."

Quincy laughed. "Of course not."

Chuck was undaunted. "I'm not worrying at all, but I am curious. What's in the containers?"

"Digging equipment."

"Like backhoes and stuff? That's hardly what I'd call sensitive."

Prialla turned to look at the containers, her breasts stretching the fabric of her tight top. Quincy didn't immediately hear her when she said, "Archaeological equipment."

Chuck stated the obvious. "So you're an archaeologist."

Prialla nodded. "I am. My partner and I are part of an expedition to Jaunta. We missed our scheduled flight and are stranded here."

"And your partner..." Chuck started.

"Sultia," said Quincy, letting the name glide off his tongue and smiling again at the thought of a second Bollian on the ship with them.

"... is also an archaeologist?"

Prialla nodded, and then continued. "Anyway, if we leave quickly, and can get to Jaunta in a week, we can..."

"A WEEK!?" Quincy yelled, snapping out of the spell of enamorment that the woman had put on him.

Prialla blinked. "Yes, a week."

"Seven days?"

"That... is the standard definition of a week."

Chuck turned to his friend. "I take it Jaunta's far..."

"It's on the other side of the bubble, and it's only got one jump point. And it connects outward, toward the rim. We have to go around the system and come back."

Prialla looked at Quincy with a bit of awe. "You just know that? Off the top of your head?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know EVERY system, of course, but Jaunta's new. They just found it a couple months ago."

Prialla nodded. "Which is why time is of the essence. Every day we're not there – every HOUR – is an opportunity that goes to other diggers."

"Your need doesn't change the simple logistics of space flight. I would need to look at a map but I can't see doing it in less than 10 days."

Prialla accessed the computer on her arm band. "Well, I happen to have a map right here."

Above the arm band, a holographic projection appeared. Dots represented stars, and shaded blobs around groups of stars showed the various political divisions of the Bubble. Quincy knew the map well and would have been able to pick out about a hundred of the dots of light by sight, including Olpath - the planet they were on right now - and Jaunta - the planet that Prialla wanted to reach in a week. As he had said, the two were quite far apart and the bloated sphere of the Core was directly between them.

Quincy opened his mouth to tell her this, but she hit a button and a zigzag line appeared inside the star map. One end of the line touched Olpath, the other touched Jaunta. As Quincy had said, the line looped around Jaunta and came at it from the outer edge of the star map. What Quincy hadn't said – what he hadn't even considered – was what the line did in between.

But it was Chuck who voiced his concern. "No. No no. Not the Core."

"Do you have a problem with the Core?" asked Prialla.

"Not at all, except how you think it'll actually be faster to go that way."

Prialla's upper lip became more full as she pouted. "It will. Look at the travel time."

Below the line was a set of numbers. The white numbers – the travel time – showed 157 hours.

Chuck explained, like a parent to a child. "Yeah, see... those numbers are for uninterrupted travel at full rel. They don't account for fuel and other stops, and if you go through the Core you get stopped. A lot."

Quincy got his head back in the game. He'd make this work. "Well, we're only hitting four Core systems, and two of them are borders..."

"Borders are worse than the Core itself," said Chuck.

Prialla's eyes began to shimmer with tears.

"Wait wait wait," said Quincy, holding up a hand. "He's not saying we can't do it."

"Yes. I am."

"He's saying that there may be..."

Chuck kept it up. "Problems."

"...issues."

Prialla bit her lip. "Look. Sultia and I are in a jam. You're the only ship that's even considered a cargo load this small. What if we make the time constraint part of the contract not contingent on time it takes to get through the Core?"

Chuck blinked. He didn't actually know what that meant. "That sounds... reasonable?"

Quincy nodded. "Core travel is probably twenty, maybe thirty hours of the total time listed there. Assuming my red line matches yours, we can guarantee non-core travel time will be... 140 hours or less."

Prialla smiled. "Done!"

Chuck looked wary. "That still seems a pretty short time to get all the way across the Bubble..."

Prialla steeled herself. "And there's one more thing, which I hope won't be a problem."

Chuck threw up his hands. "Well, nothing else has been a problem, why should this?"

"The dig should take about a month and, because we missed our flight we won't have berths or storage when we reach Jaunta. If we could, we'd like to rent your ship for that month."

Chuck's expression snapped from resolute to interested. "As room and board?"

Prialla nodded. "Yes. And we understand that we'll be keeping you from running cargo, so we are willing to pay as if we were being transported."

This was the kind of math that Chuck could do in his head. "Two passengers, for a month, with 15 cargo containers worth..."

Prialla said, "It's actually 19."

Quincy nodded, attempting to blow the conversation past this admittedly sticky point. "Right."

Chuck paused, but Quincy again nodded to him to continue so he did. "I figure... ten thousand credits a week."

Prialla seemed happy. "That's roughly what I'd figured as well. We can afford that."

Chuck made a note to discuss the 4 extra containers' worth with Quincy later, and get the money straight now. First things first, after all. "So for a month, that'd be forty thousand credits."

Prialla nodded.

"Plus the week of transport, that's fifty thousand total."

"We are willing to pay that. But we need to leave as quickly as possible."

Chuck felt his prey was almost caught. "We get paid in advance. Each week. Including the first one."

Prialla was working the contract as they spoke. "140 hours... not including the Core... 50,000 credits, 10 a week. Okay, sign it and we'll deposit the first 10,000."

Quincy snapped back into reality. "Oh! I want to run the trip through our nav computer."

Prialla nodded. "I'll make that a contingent. The money won't be deposited until you sign off on that section as well."

Chuck reached for the contract. "Well, I can sign. And to speed things up I can start loading the cargo right now."

She was visibly relieved at this. "That sounds perfect. Thank you. So when will we be ready?"

Chuck looked at the cargo, and then the ship, and then the setting sun. It was early Summer on Olpath, which meant it was about 9:00 PM local time. "How does nine AM sound??" he asked.

Prialla nodded, "Deal. We will be back here a bit before then." She turned to Quincy, "Try to get the contract signed within the hour, so we can find another ship if you are not available."

Quincy said, "I'll know in 15 minutes. I'm sure it won't be a problem."

Prialla handed over the controls of the cart to Chuck, and waved coyly at Quincy. "Then we'll see you in eleven hours."

Quincy waved back, and watched his new passenger walk away toward the setting sun. Her form became a silhouette against the dark blue sky on the horizon. He continued watching even as Chuck spoke to him.

Chuck made his comment a second time.

Quincy shook his head. "I'm sorry, what?"

Chuck spoke slowly and deliberately so Quincy would hear him this time. "So. I did the math, and she's right. 96 half-containers is twelve full containers. Add that to the other seven full containers, and we're at 19 full containers."

"Yeah," said Quincy.

"So where in the Bubble were you planning on putting all this extra cargo?"

"Follow me," said Quincy. "I'll show you."

Quincy took significantly more than the 15 minutes he'd hoped to spend on the route calculation, but slightly less than the hour Prialla had given him. The bulk of the time was spent learning the navigation software, which had changed a lot in the intervening six years since he'd been in school. What he discovered about the program impressed him, but it also took time to learn... time that he simply did not have.

In the end, he used the automated route generation tool and it gave him the exact route he remembered from Prialla's map. He could ask it for a route that avoided certain systems, but was not able to avoid the Core without excepting every single system within it. He wasn't willing, right now, to put all 50-plus worlds into an exception list one-by-one.

So, when Chuck asked him how he'd gotten along, he merely grunted.

"Is that a good grunt or a bad grunt?"

"It's a looks-like-we're-going-through-the-Core grunt."

"Ah. Well, we figured we'd have to anyway. And we're not responsible for how long it takes."

Quincy nodded. "Did you read the contract?"

"Every word, and I understood at least half of them. I don't see anything to worry about though. The changes we wanted are in there and the rest seems to be a pretty standard passage-plus-cargo contract form."

"So I sign it?" he asked. Suddenly he was trepid.

"I did," said Chuck."

"You're usually a bit more cavalier than I."

"Our hour's almost up, though. And it's 10,000 credits..."

Quincy paused, sighed, and signed his personal symbol on the device. Chuck entered the bank account number he'd opened specifically for the ship.

The contract beeped.

"Is that it?" asked Quincy.

Chuck used his armband computer to check the bank. He grinned. "That's it. We just made 10,000 credits."

Quincy let that sink in. They were doing it. They were freelance traders hauling passengers and cargo. For money.

"Okay," said Chuck. Let's get this cargo loaded."

"First things first," said Quincy. "I have to make a call."

"Hello, this is Quincy. I am going to have to take some time off. I know this is sudden and all but... something's... come up. Henry can cover my accounts. They're mostly on autopilot right now anyway. Um, except the Blorin account. I think Mindy should take that one because she was part of the implementation team. And... Um... I'm sorry about this. I'd really like to do this in person but I'm leaving before work starts today and..." He trailed off. He had no more to say to the message machine in his boss' office. "Yeah."

His ex-boss' office. If this went well, Quincy knew, he'd never be coming back. And if it did not go well, he'd likely not have a job to come back to. But 10,000 credits was about 4 months' pay, and they were going to make 16 more months' pay after that. Those were numbers that were hard to argue with.

He disconnected after instructing the machine to save the message that would end his career.

My job, he thought. Not my career. I ended a dead-end job in advertising. This is my career.

Chuck had a hover-skid loaded with half containers. They were heavier than he'd expected them to be, and he could only get four of them on the skid at a time. "This is going to take all night."

Quincy held out the ship's portable communicator. "You going to call in to work?"

"No," said Chuck. "When they see I'm gone too, they'll know we went together."

"But you should tell your boss..."

Chuck cut off his friend. "Why? It's the frickin' mail room, Quince. Nobody's going to miss one guy and if they do, they'll just hire another one."

Quincy considered this for a moment, and then silently agreed. He tried to think of something to change the subject, but found he didn't have to.

Chuck suddenly spouted, "What do you think of The Crimson Line?"

"For what?"

"For the ship's name."

"You mean like the navigation line?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. Kinda... I don't know."

"Well here's what I'm thinking," said Chuck, as he guided the skid up the ramp. "When you want to get somewhere as fast as possible, what would you do?"

"Hire a ship."

"No. I mean YOU you. What would you do?"

"I'd plot a course?"

"And what would that course be?"

"A red line."

"Exactly. A Crimson Line. Taking you across the system, or across the entire Bubble, as fast as possible with the least amount of fuss. That's us."

Quincy nodded. "Put it that way, I like it."

"Cool. Then you won't mind that I hired a painter to put it on the side."

Quincy laughed "Not at all. Kinda waiting for the last second though, aren't you?"

"Well, I couldn't afford it until we got paid. And even then we barely had enough."

"We just got ten thousand credits! How much are you paying the painter?" yelled Quincy.

"No, no," said Chuck waving his arms and confusing the robot. "Just a couple hundred."

The skid visibly quickened its pace when it reached the top of the ramp and did not need to fight gravity any more.

"So where's the rest?" asked Quincy, agitated.

"Don't worry. I used it to buy fuel and supplies, and pay the monthly loan payments."

"Oh," said Quincy, surprised. "That was very forward thinking of you. I'm impressed."

Chuck smiled. "Thank you."

"Wait a second," Quincy snapped. "The monthly loan payments are ten thousand credits!?"

"No! Only eight. And only a quarter of that is to the loan shark."

"We owe a loan shark two thousand credits a month?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah."

"We really need to talk about these loans."

Chuck halted the skid in the middle of the cargo bay. "In a bit," he said, "Right now we really need to talk about exactly how we're fitting all these containers in the ship."

"We can sacrifice a stateroom," Quincy answered. "They're 4 by 3 by 2, so that's 24 half-crates in one of them. Put our passengers in the other stateroom, and the last 8 half-crates can fit in the bomb bay. That leaves 64 half-crates which is the same as 8 full crates, which will fit in the cargo bay. Easy peasy."

"And with your stateroom taken, where will you sleep?"

Quincy frowned. "So you just assumed you get the large stateroom?"

"I'm the one who will almost never get 8 hours of sleep because I'll have to keep getting up to make course changes. I should have the better room."

Quincy decided to let it drop. "But anyway. The room's big enough for the two of us."

"There's only one bed."

"I'll sleep on the floor," Quincy said. He paused, grinned, and added, "Or with luck, I'll bunk with the Bollians."

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Take this skid up and I'll start loading the other one."

The Sun had risen outside. The night had passed by and the pair had not stopped loading cargo. 103 does not seem like a large number until you must individually deal with 103 heavy cargo containers in sequence.

But the stateroom was full, the bomb bay was full, and the hover skid was - under the guidance of a very tired Quincy Merriweather - sliding the last of the containers into the cargo bay.

And they had less than an hour before take-off.

Chuck dropped down the 0-G tube into the cargo bay. He had been going over the controls - at the last minute as usual - so as to make that take-off possible. He showed no signs of the weariness that Quincy was sure his friend felt.

"The painter just called! The name's done! Wanna see it?"

The final cargo container snapped into place. The cargo bay was full to the brim. Quincy slid his credit voucher into the robot's payment slot and the automated skid raced away. He found it hard not to anthropomorphize and think that it was fleeing the work they had just put it through. He turned to Chuck and tried with little success to hide his weariness. "Sure."

They walked down the ramp and out onto the tarmac, where the painter was filling out the bill.

"Here you go," said the painter, handing Chuck the bill. Chuck signed it, thanked the man, and turned around. "Very nice," he said, nodding with appreciation at the work done by not only the painter, but by himself.

Quincy looked at the logo as well. Something did not look right.

The painter collected his tools and strode away.

Quincy squinted at the logo.

Chuck prompted him with a, "Well? What do you think?"

"Um," said Quincy, unsure.

"I drew the picture myself. See how it looks like the ship, but it's kind-of stylized?"

Quincy did not answer him, but instead asked a question of his own. "What did you want the ship to be named again?"

"The Crimson Line."

"Yeah, see. That's not what it says."

"What do you mean? Of course that's what it says. It's even got the actual line coming out of the ship's engine. I thought that was cool."

"Chuck. Seriously. Read the name."

Chuck glanced at the ship. "The Crimson Line. What?"

"No," said Quincy. "Don't just look at it and assume. Read it."

Chuck looked, hard, at the ship. He read slowly to appease his friend. "The. Crimson. Line."

"Read the last word again."

Chuck did so, silently, and frowned.

"So you see it."

"Yeah."

"The Crimson Lien," said Quincy.

"Wait, what's a lien again? That's a real word."

"It's actually quite appropriate, considering we're in debt up to my ear tips."

Chuck looked up at Quincy's ear tips. This would be a slightly more forceful statement if Quincy's right ear didn't tend to droop, but the point was made.

Chuck turned, "I have to get that painter!"

He rebounded off the chest of a large, well-proportioned man with flowing blond hair and a perfectly chiseled chin. "Excuse me," said the man in a deep voice, "are you... Chuck?"

Chuck instantly hated the man. "Yes, I am. Look, I need to..."

Upon the affirmative, the man ignored the rest and continued, "I'm here to commission your ship."

Chuck, who had been working his way around the man's muscled form, stopped his journey momentarily. "The ship's already commissioned. Sorry. Now, if you'd just let me..."

The man continued undaunted. "I know it's commissioned. I commissioned it."

Chuck had made it a full step past the man before he stopped full.

This man was clearly a Bollian. The sickeningly square jaw suggested it. The golden hair, muscular frame, and ocean-blue eyes sealed the deal.

Quincy, who had been grinning at the ship, turned with a frown.

Prialla had never said if Sultia was a man or a woman.

She never mentioned her relationship with Sultia, either.

She had been wearing gloves, both at their first meeting and when she delivered the cargo.

This man was wearing a ring. On his ring finger.

Quincy blinked, slowly and deliberately. Much to his dismay the man remained in front of him. He asked "And who are you?"

Chuck answered, "This - I think - is Sultia."

The man smiled and gave a small bow, "Sultia Thrombia. At your service!"

Quincy stammered.

Sultia smiled, showing perfect teeth. "Prialla will be by soon. You know how women are. Last minute shopping. I hope we can still get off by nine?"

Quincy yammered.

Chuck nodded. "Yes. We're all ready to go."

Sultia continued, "I was hoping to check on the cargo. Make sure it's secured. May I?"

Quincy blathered.

Chuck grinned. "Of course," he said, motioning toward the ship. "The ship is loaded and we're preparing for liftoff now."

Sultia looked the men up and down. "How, exactly, are you doing that?"

Chuck blinked. "I'm sorry. Doing what?"

"Preparing for liftoff. While standing here."

Chuck laughed forcibly. "Good one! Yes. Anyway. We'll be along in a moment."

Sultia frowned, turned, and headed toward the ship. Chuck turned to Quincy, who had stopped stammering, yammering, and blathering.

In fact, Quincy had regained his ability to form words. "A month!"

"Quincy..."

"We're going to be cramped up in one cabin for a month!"

"I know."

"I knew this was too good to be true!"

"Quincy..."

"Don't 'Quincy' me! This was supposed to be an improvement on life! Freedom! Exploration! Hell, it was supposed to actually be a life! And now we're leaving Olpath to fly to an uninhabited rock, to sit around for a month while these two look under rocks for pottery! And the one thing - the ONE thing - that made it worth it was that we were going to spend the month with two beautiful Bollians!"

Chuck could not contain his amusement. "Actually, that part is still true."

"BUT ONE OF THEM'S A GUY!"

"And you forgot about the part where they're married."

"Great. Just great."

Chuck tried to restore some of Quincy's sanity. "Look. We're still getting paid. Fifty thousand credits."

"Out of all the good that was supposed to come from this, that's all that's left."

"And it's enough! This trip will pay for itself double. Triple even. And if we have to share a room so what? It's the biggest room on the ship, and we'll spend most of our time in the cockpit or the kitchen anyway. And come on, did you really think Prialla would have fallen for you?"

Quincy made a hurtful look. "I was hopeful."

"Well you still get to look at her which is probably all you could have done anyway. And remember the most important part: We'll be flying a space ship. OUR space ship. You and me. Partners."

Quincy looked Chuck in the eye, skeptical. "I can't tell if you're grocking me or are actually serious."

Chuck grinned. "A little of both."

Quincy grinned back. "Grock poo or not, you're actually right. And I already quit my job so it's not like I can back out now."

Chuck patted his Quillian friend on the back. "That's the attitude!"

From 20 meters away, Sultia Thrombia poked his head out from the open bay door and called, "Excuse me? We're short quite a large number of containers in here!"

Chuck yelled back. "Ah, yes. We secured the others, don't worry!"

He turned to Quincy. "Go show him. This was your idea."

Quincy ran to the ship, loping along with his odd Quillian gait.

Chuck shook his head, slowly, and watched from afar as his friend and business partner tried to convince their client that a bomb bay was a perfectly adequate place to store excavation equipment.

Copyright © Wesley Clifford, 2010

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